


The Color of Spring

by anon_nom_nom



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Green Lantern (2011)
Genre: Gen, bat-stalking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-18
Updated: 2012-03-18
Packaged: 2017-11-02 02:48:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anon_nom_nom/pseuds/anon_nom_nom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce and Alfred consider youtube videos of the Green Lantern incidents and suggestions of other metas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Color of Spring

**Author's Note:**

> In the Green Lantern movie, there's a shot where someone's using a cameraphone to film Hal flying away from the party. The first thing that popped into my head: Batman's going to stalk the crap out of that. Takes place post-TDK Batman-side.

Aflred returned to the Cave to find Bruce only just started on the sandwich whose tray he had come to collect. He was still staring at the monitors, as he had been in every spare moment for the last three days.

"Forgive me, Master Wayne, but I don't think there's anything else to be found in ten minutes of youtube video."

"I'm running Lucius's new enhancement program," said Bruce around a mouthful of bread and beef.

"I don't see a difference," said Alfred, putting on his spectacles. He didn't bother trying to correct Bruce's less polite behaviors anymore, not when he was so busy trying to keep him alive.

"Well, it can't create information that's not there," said Bruce after swallowing. He drank from the glass of water, his favored beverage since his return. "It's better than the original, though."

He pulled up a slightly more pixelated copy of the video, running them side by side. It wasn't all that much improved, really. Alfred took off his glasses.

"What do you intend to do about this? You never even contacted Superman after all the time you spent stalking _him._ "

Not looking at Alfred, Bruce hit a key, and all the other monitors pulled up pictures of smoky brown and gold tentacles ripping apart buildings, while the video of the helicopter incident remained in the center. Most of the tentacle-creature videos were also very poor quality, but there were a few news helicopters that had caught an out-of-focus green blur moving around it, then the thing leaving. Alfred blinked at one that was looping images of what appeared to be people lifted into the air, then light sucking out of them before they collapsed to the ground, dead.

"Somebody needs to keep an eye on them," said Bruce, not taking his eyes off the screen. "People capable of defeating something like that have to be dangerous."

"Tell me, sir, has there been any evidence of ill intent?" asked Alfred, knowing the answer.

Bruce turned to give him a look of highly dubious annoyance.

"Everyone's corruptible, Alfred."

There were many problems with that statement, but he didn't bother to point them out.

"Have you worked out his identity yet?" he asked instead.

"Not yet," said Bruce, turning back to the monitors. "He might be another alien, but I don't think an alien would choose to create toy cars. The construction was inefficient enough that the powers are probably new. Given his reaction time, he may have been a guest at the party, but I'm not certain this is the first act. The first appearance of a superhero is always one of convenience."

"Yours wasn't, sir."

"I don't have any powers to need suddenly in emergencies," said Bruce, a little too offhand. "And most people aren't me."

"That's certainly true," muttered Alfred, straightening the unfinished tray.

"What was that?" asked Bruce.

"Oh? Nothing, sir."

To his surprise, Bruce dropped it. But then, he'd been slower to respond to needling ever since....

Part of him wanted Bruce to revert to being ten years old so Alfred could comfort him, but Bruce had never really been that young. He'd been too intelligent to quite experience childhood normally, with too much guard and self-consciousness early on.

Still eating, Bruce watched the looping video of souls being torn from bodies with a sort of academic dispassion that Alfred would have struggled to replicate even decades ago, on his darker missions. Eventually, Bruce closed everything that didn't have a green superhero in it, moving them to the top to pull up news articles. Some of them looked like....

"Tabloids, sir?" asked Alfred.

"Bad reputation for paying their sources, but it does mean they sometimes get stories earlier."

"Or completely incorrect. What is that?"

Alfred pointed at a strange, human-shaped blur moving across a black-and-white photo.

"Central City," said Bruce. "They're saying it's red. Seventeen sightings with multiple witnesses. There's also a woman with Superman-like abilities who appeared recently in the Mediterranean, and there's rumors of some kind of archer in Star City."

"What are you trying to say?" said Alfred, trying not to worry what a new paranoid obsession would do to Bruce. "Not all of us can keep up with the way your brain works."

"This is the start of something," he replied. "The world is changing. We need to be prepared."

"The way I see it, sir, this is also an opportunity," said Alfred, and Bruce swiveled back to him curiously. "Assuming you won't let any of them help in Gotham—"

"Yes."

"—then, if you and Jim Gordon are right about escalation, there will be threats corresponding to the number of masked vigilantes in the world. Maybe, rather than worrying about your potential allies, you can worry about potential enemies. Maybe even make some new friends. Lord knows I've given up on you socializing normally."

"They tend to die, Alfred," said Bruce, not really seeing the monitors he had returned to watching.

"Those ones lie beyond the reach of Gotham," said Alfred. "And as much as you may hate it, you're going to have to learn to work with them if you want to defend the world from whatever may be coming."

Bruce finished his sandwich, pondering this. Alfred picked up the tray, leaving the water.

"If I could get all of them together," said Bruce, "we could talk about strategies. Form some kind of a defense force, a coalition, a...."

He fumbled for a moment more.

"League."


End file.
